PROBLEM INVENTORY ANALYSIS (PIA)
This technique (Tauber, 1975) is for new-product development, and
is related to Focus groups (q.v.), Bug listing (q.v.), and survey based
methods such as Delphi (q.v.). Having identified generic problems in
a given field, people are asked to identify particular forms of them.
These are then analysed to see which problems have market
potential, and might be used to develop new products.
1.
Develop a list of generic things that a consumer group such as
‘cooks’, ‘car drivers’, ‘DIY enthusiasts’, etc. tend to complain
about.
2.
Develop this into a sentence completion questionnaire listing
problem statements with product names blanked out: ‘……….
never pours properly’; ‘……… stains won’t come out’;
‘………. tends to spill’; ‘You can never find ……….. when you
want it’; etc.
3.
Carry out the survey and analyse the results to identify
recurring problems that appear to have market potential. For
instance, if you get a lot of responses suggesting that a
particular kind of product tends to spill, this may suggest a
marketing opportunity to correct this.
4.
Use any appropriate idea generating or problem-solving
technique to develop suitable products to meet these key
problems.
Notice that the survey respondents are not being asked to be
‘creative’ – they respond as ‘ordinary consumers’. This technique is
therefore a nice illustration of how innovative ideas can often be
developed from responses that are not intrinsically ‘creative’. The
creativity comes from the capacity to create conditions where a
variety of people can express their varied perceptions, in such a way
that you can ‘hear’ these. Even the more obviously ‘creative’ group
methods often have a strong element of this ‘uncreative’ creativity.
While this technique was designed for new product development,
one could also imagine its use as a problem-identification ‘scanning’
technique to help surface, say, organizational malfunctions in a TQM
or Kaizen context (‘Form ………. is very difficult to complete’;
‘Assembly task………. is always problematic’; ‘I don’t understand
what I am supposed to do about ……….’; ‘I am very worried about
………….’; and so on.)
Tauber, E.M. (1975) ‘Discovering new product opportunities with
problem inventory analysis’, Journal of Marketing, 39, 67–70
FUNCTION
Exploring
Defining
Gathering
Generating
Grouping
Screening
Prioritising
Planning
Full process
RESOURCES
1(–2) people
Large group
Brief
Extended
Facilitation skills
Special setting
Computing
PROBLEM
Personal
Multiple issues
Stakeholders
New product
Futures/plans
ANALYTIC MODE
Categorising
Causality
Checklist/table
Combinatorial
Mapping
Numerical
Questioning
Reframing
Scanning
Scenarios/views
Surveys, etc.
Uses experts
Voting
INTUITIVE MODE
Analogy
Distortion
Excursion
Hitch-hiking
Imagery
Kinaesthetic
Listening
Pictures
Relaxation
Role-play/empathy
Subconscious
Values
Verbal
Wishing
SOCIAL MODE
Ad hoc/covert
Anything goes!
Debate/dialogue
Game
Interactive events
Moving about
Networking
Nominal
Starter’s kit
Based on: VanGundy, A.B. (1988) Techniques of Structured Problem
Solving, 2nd ed., Van Nostrand Reinhold. Technique 4.47, pp. 161–2
B822 Technique Library
Copyright © 2009 The Open University